Lambton, an unsuccessful Liberal candidate for Newcastle, in
September 1900, he condemned the general conduct of affairs
by Lord Salisbury's government, while in several speeches in
the House of Lords he strongly urged the necessity of army
reform. Since his abandonment of the leadership in 1896, the
lack of coherence in the Liberal party had become more and
more manifest. The war had brought to the front a pro-Boer
section, who seemed gradually to be compromising the whole
party, and had apparently succeeded in winning the support
of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the leader in the House of
Commons. Lord Rosebery maintained for the most part a
sphinx-like seclusion, but in July 1901 he at last came forward
strongly as the champion of the Liberal Imperialist section.
In deference to the wishes of supporters such as Mr Asquith, Sir Henry Fowler and Sir Edward Grey he determined to “put his views into the common stock ” at a representative meeting of Liberals held at Chesterfield in December 1901. There he advised the Liberal party that “its slate must be cleaned,” and, as he subsequently explained, this cleansing must involve the elimination of Home Rule for Ireland. His appeal for “spade work” resulted in the formation of the Liberal League, inside the Liberal Opposition; and what Lord Rosebery himself described as his “definite separation” from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's “tabernacle” took place. This announcement, however, was no sooner made than it was explained away by the supporters of both, and early in 1902 Lord Rosebery spoke at the National Liberal Club in a way which indicated that an understanding might still be arrived at. But though Mr Asquith and Sir Edward Grey adhered to the Liberal League, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman retained the loyalty of the majority of the Liberal party, and Lord Spencer threw his weight on the same side; and in a speech at the Liberal League dinner on the 31st of July Lord Rosebery had to admit that their principles had not yet prevailed, and that, until they did, a reconciliation between the two wings of the party would be impossible. In January 1903 he addressed a Liberal meeting at Plymouth, and appeared to be attempting to concentrate Opposition criticism upon the points in the government policy which did not involve the Imperialist difference; and in discussing War Office reform he advocated the appointment of Lord Kitchener as secretary of state for war.
When Mr Chamberlain started his new fiscal programme, combining Tariff Reform with Colonial Preference, Lord Rosebery at first seemed inclined to treat it as non-political, and on the 19th of May 1903 he declared in an address to the Burnley Chamber of Commerce that he was not one of those who regarded Free Trade as part of the Sermon on the Mount. This utterance led to an idea that he was inclined to consider favourably the proposal for a preferential tariff, his earlier enthusiasm for Imperial Federation making his support an interesting political possibility. But this idea was quickly dispelled; on the 22nd he expressed his surprise that anybody should have thought he intended to approve of Mr Chamberlain's plan; he was not prepared to dismiss in advance a proposal for the consolidation of the empire made by the responsible government, but he believed that the objections to a policy of preference were insurmountable. The fact, no doubt, was that Mr Asquith, Lord Rosebery's chief lieutenant in the Liberal League, made himself from the outset a determined champion of free trade in opposition to Mr Chamberlain; and Lord Rosebery quickly came into line with the rest of the Liberal party on this question. On the I2th of June, addressing the Liberal League, he admitted that as a lifelong Imperialist it was with pain and grief that he could not support Mr Chamberlain's scheme, but the empire had been built upon free trade, and he only saw danger to the empire in these new proposals. Speaking at Sheffield on the 13th of October he criticized the scheme in more detail, and, as an Imperialist; warned the country against it, emphasizing his own ideal of the future of the empire—“ a strong mother with strong children, each working out his own political and fiscal salvation.” His attitude on the new issue undoubtedly affected public opinion, and helped to draw him closer to the great body of the Liberal party, who saw that their identification with the cause of free trade was doing much to remove the public distrust associated with their support of Home Rule. On the 7th of November at Leicester Lord Rosebery insisted that what the country wanted was not fiscal reform but commercial reform, and h. appealed to the free-trade section of the Unionist party tjoin the Liberals in a united defence, -an appeal incidentally for Liberal unity which was warmly seconded ten days later by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. On the 26th of November Lord Rosebery's speech on the same lines at a meeting in South London resulted in a powerful demonstration in favour of his resuming the Liberal leadership, but he made no public response. On the 10th of June 1904 he addressed a meeting of the Liberal League at the Queen's Hall, London, and sketched a programme of “sane and practical Imperialism ”; but he irritated the Home Rulers by again repudiating a parliament in Dublin, and he perplexed the public generally by his adverse criticism on the popular Anglo-French Agreement, which he was the only English statesman to oppose, on the ground of its handing over Morocco to France.
At Glasgow on the 5th of December he again outlined a Liberal programme, this and other speeches all leading to the assumption that his return to active co-operation with the Liberal party in the general election-which could not be long delayed-was fairly certain. Early in 1905 this impression gained such strength and such polite references were made to one another in public by Lord Rosebery and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, that his assumption of office in a Liberal ministry, possibly presided over by Earl Spencer, was confidently anticipated. But these forecasts were ultimately upset, not only by Lord Spencer's illness and his removal from the list of possible Liberal prime ministers, but by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's pronouncement at Stirling in November on the subject of Irish Home Rule. Lord Rosebery had just gone down to Cornwall to make a series of speeches in support of the Liberal programme, now fairly well mapped out as regards those items which represented the strong public opposition to what had been done by the Unionist government. It was believed that an understanding had been come to between his Liberal League henchmen (Mr Asquith, Sir E. Grey and Mr Haldane) and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and that Lord Rosebery's co-operation was to be secured by the adoption of some formula which would temporarily take Home Rule out of the official programme as a question of practical politics. But to the general surprise and Lord Rosebery's own very evident mortification Sir Henry went a long way in his Stirling speech to nail the Home Rule colour to the mast; he did not indeed propose to introduce a Home Rule Bill, but he declared his determination to proceed in Irish legislation on lines which would lead up to the same result. Lord Rosebery abruptly broke off his campaign, declaring at Bodmin (26th of November) that he would never “fight under that banner.” From the moment the apparent recrudescence of the Liberal split over this question seemed to have misled Mr Balfour, who resigned office on the 4th of December, into thinking that difficulties would arise over the formation of a Liberal cabinet; but, whether or not the rumour was correct that a blunder had been made at Stirling and that explanations had ensued which satisfied Mr Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, this anticipation proved unjustified. Lord Rosebery himself, it is true, held aloof; his protest had been publicly made and he adhered to it in the absence of any public withdrawal by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman; but he encouraged his Liberal League supporters to be loyal to the new prime minister, and Mr Asquith, Sir E. Grey and Mr Haldane were included in the Liberal cabinet. The overwhelming Liberal and Labour victory at the general election of 1906 began a new era in the fortunes of the party, and Lord Rosebery's individuality once more sank back from any position of prominence in regard to its new programme. He remained outside party politics,
